Ontario Open Iaido Tournament

I was back in Canada ever-so-briefly (well it seems that way, looking back) in August. I was happy to have the chance to stop in to the Ontario Open Iaido Tournament, held at the beautiful Japanese Canadian Cultural Center (or JCCC) in Toronto. This is a very well-organized annual event. This year, the tournament was held on Sunday, following an all-day seminar on Saturday, which I sadly wasn't able to attend.

The whole thing seemed to run very smoothly. I was asked by one of the organizers how it compared to tournaments in Japan. I would say that it compared very favourably, both in terms of organization and quality of competitors. I did feel that the atmosphere was a tad too quiet -- despite being held in a huge room, but you could hear a pin drop! In Japan, the audience is a little bit larger, and correspondingly noisier.

I couldn't stay long enough to find out who won. (I showed up, disrupted things, and then left, which is kind of becoming "my style".)